Jeremy Bokila was in every respect the protagonist of the Brabant derby. The 36-year-old attacker gave Willem II a point against NAC deep in injury time, but that was hardly about it afterwards. ‘I don’t understand how something like this is still used today.’
After the final whistle, emotions ran high in the King Willem II Stadium. Bokila went crazy, had to be held back by several teammates and then fled to the catacombs. “I don’t recognize myself that way, but I had a reason for it,” said the goalscorer, who indicated that he had been treated racist. “That’s why it went black before my eyes.”
‘I was like, if we knew each other, I would see it as a joke and laugh it off. But I don’t know you, you don’t know me. Then you shouldn’t say that to me, you’ve come to the wrong place,” Bokila continued. ‘At that moment I no longer cared whether I got red or not. I don’t understand how something like this is still used today. What gives you the right to say that?’
Bokila, who did not want to say what exactly was said, initially indicated that it was a substituted player from NAC and then also provided a name. ‘That number 7 (Matthew Garbett, ed.). I actually had nothing to do with the disturbance, but then he suddenly came running from the couch. I thought: calm down, we’re calming things down. Then that happened.’
Bokila indicated that he did not want to file a case. ‘This happened on the field, then it’s over for me. Of course there will be a return. We’ll see how it goes then. Other than that there isn’t much I can do about it. Life goes on.’ Garbett was not in the mixed zone and was therefore unavailable for comment. NAC indicated that it wanted to first conduct an internal investigation and then provide an official response.
Watch all our videos here
Leave a Reply